In Afghanistan, the outcome of our decade-long military engagement is still unclear. But recently, the country enjoyed some rare good news. According to an Afghan government survey released last month, far fewer women are dying in childbirth and many more babies and children are surviving the early days and years of life. That’s the kind of progress worth investing in because it helps build peace and stability.

It’s also the kind of progress at risk as the U.S. Congress considers major cuts to the international affairs budget. Slashing the 1 percent of federal spending devoted to foreign aid will have virtually no impact on the overall budget. But it will threaten critical investments in global security and prosperity.

Hawaii has a lot at stake in the foreign aid debate, but also, a special role to play. As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, our senior U.S. senator, Dan Inouye, is in the best position to push back on the 20 percent cuts that some members of the House of Representatives have proposed. Hawaii’s people should ask him to do so now, before the Dec. 16 deadline for next year’s budget bill.

Cuts could cripple programs that promote international understanding, like the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, and decrease investments around the world that promote global economic growth. These are key to the international trade, investment and tourism that fuel Hawaii’s economy.

Investing in more stable societies creates a safer world for us all, including the large community of Hawaiians serving our country in the armed forces. These investments also directly protect some of the world’s most vulnerable citizens: women and children.

The U.S. director of national intelligence made clear how our fate is tied to the Afghans’ in his 2009 testimony to Congress. He said the Afghan government’s inability to provide basic health services for pregnant women and children had undermined its credibility among citizens and boosted support for a resurgent Taliban.

In recent years, surveys estimated that one in five Afghan children died before they reached their fifth birthday, and one in 11 women died from maternal causes. Those terrible statistics led the humanitarian organization Save the Children to rank Afghanistan as the worst place on Earth to be a mother. Childbirth and easily treatable diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were racking up far more casualties than war.

The new Afghan survey shows the situation is changing. Child death rates have been cut in half, and maternal mortality by even more. U.S.-funded programs have helped Afghanistan train thousands of community health workers and hundreds of midwives, and to open health clinics in many communities for the first time.

But, death rates in Afghanistan remain high. Now is not the time to pull back aid and squander the progress under way there and elsewhere. Today the U.S. government is doing more than ever to ensure that foreign aid dollars go to the people in need, through initiatives to increase monitoring, accountability, transparency and effectiveness.

Foreign aid is a tiny portion of our federal budget, but an area vulnerable to disproportionately deep cuts because the impact of these investments isn’t always obvious. It’s a critical moment for Hawaii’s people and Sen. Inouye to stand up for foreign aid. We’ll help ourselves while helping families in need around the world.